Rooted

In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali follows his initial discussion of detachment with a prolonged attention to our relationship with God. He has told us that we need to be freed of the cravings for the world that bind and distract us, and he has noted that a "complete understanding of [our] true self" will liberate us from these distractions. Such an understanding will open to us the state of Yoga, the ability to attend fully to the world as it has been given to us.

This is always the goal--the state of Yoga--an ability for live-giving openness and attention. Some are simply born into this state, Patanjali tells us, but most of us must strive for it, and it can seem at best a distant possibility. A first, foundational step towards this goal, then, is faith. "Through faith, which will give sufficient energy to achieve success against all odds, direction will be maintained. The realization of Yoga is a matter of time." (Yoga Sutras, 1.20) We need faith, but not faith in general or in ourselves or in yoga. We need faith in God. We need faith in the one who envelops our world and gives it to us. We need to attend to God, and from such attention we will perceive our true nature--that liberating truth--and we will be girded for our journey. (Yoga Sutras, 1. 24-29)

What is this true nature that faith reveals to us? Simply speaking, it's that we are rooted, or more fully, that we are rooted in God. We are rooted in the eternal. We are rooted in fullness.

This sense of our rootedness--it's at the heart of the practice of the mindfulness and the spiritual life, and it means several things. It is, first, an emptying. It tells us that we are not rooted in ourselves, but that we are only as we are in a live-giving relationship with life around us. It calls us out of ourselves. This is its first attack on our craving. It displaces us from any pedestal of possession. It reminds us that the world does not belong to us, but rather we belong to an Other.

This sense of rootedness calls us out of ourselves and it calls us to relation with the Other. It reminds us that this relationship is essential to us, and so we need to attend to it. We must open ourselves, for any attempt to close ourselves off will only cut us off from the soil that gives us life. This will diminish craving because it will diminish hunger. If we can be fed, then there is less for us to crave.

Finally, this sense of rootedness reminds us that we are not rooted in general, but that we are rooted in the eternal--in Fullness. If we are rooted in the eternal, then we are freed for the world. We find that we are not needy for the world because the One who has made the world a Gift to us feeds us. We don't need to hunger for the world because we are already well-fed. This frees us to attend to the world, to give thanks for the world. It frees us for Yoga.